It’s Hybrid Time! — 34 Fish, Belton Lake, 17 April 2014

This morning I welcomed Luke Neiser, owner of Temple-based Mobile Phone Geeks, and his crew aboard including his 8 year old son, Nathaniel, Luke’s longtime friend, Hugh Moore, and Hugh’s dad, James Moore.
 



(L to R): James Moore, Hugh Moore, Luke Neiser, and Nathaniel Neiser with 4 of the 35 fish we boated on live shad this morning.

James caught our largest hybrid of the day on a large gizzard shad.  This fish went 5.25 pounds.


I was a bit concerned as we began today for two reasons.  First, the water temperature had dropped yet again overnight, and we had an east wind.  We struggled for the first two hours, catching only 4 fish on shad, but, as the heavy grey skies began to lighten and the temperature began to warm with the little bit of sun penetrating the clouds, things turned on well for us in the last two hours.

We found aggressive hybrid striped bass feeding activity taking place over ~30 feet of water and this feeding activity drew gulls in.  As the fish fed, they would occasionally force baitfish to the surface allowing the birds above a shot at consuming a confused or wounded shad. We spotted the gull activity, idled in for a look, confirmed our suspicions with sonar, put down the baits and brought up the fish. 

It was all we could do to keep up for the first 20 minutes, then things cooled to manageable, then, by around 11:30, came to a close.  All of the fish we caught today came on live gizzard and threadfin shad fished on downlines from a “hovering” position maintained by a GPS guided
trolling motor. 

Young Nathaniel had limited experience with strong fish prior to this trip, but wound up catching several fish all by himself.  James took big fish honors with a nice 5.25 pound hybrid taken on an outsized gizzard shad — the old “big bait, big fish” maxim definitely held true.


TALLY = 35 FISH, all caught and released


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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:55a
End Time: 11:45a
Air Temp: 53F at sunrise.
Water Surface Temp: 62.7F 
Wind: ESE5-7
Skies: Greyed over
Other Notes: GT30

Areas Fished with success:

**1370   Netted shad here
**709    1 hybrid, 2 white bass, 1 crappie
**1372  23 legal hybrid, 4 white bass, 4 short hybrid







Bob Maindelle
Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com
Salado, Texas

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